


Breaking Glass In Your Room Again

by aactionjohnny



Category: The Venture Bros
Genre: Break Up, College, Friends With Benefits, Light Angst, M/M, Romantic Comedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-14
Updated: 2018-12-20
Packaged: 2019-09-18 08:59:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 14,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16991994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aactionjohnny/pseuds/aactionjohnny
Summary: A story about Rusty and Pete's complicated relationship in college and onward.





	1. White Noise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have a fairly loose outline for this in my head And four million other fics i still have to finish! because i am a disaster

He feels like it’s quiet for the first time. He’s never heard that sound. Nothing. He’s standing in the middle of a quad room, because he got lucky. Because his dad paid extra to give him more room. He’s waiting on the roommate, a name he’s forgotten because he wasn’t paying attention when he read the form. But it’s someone else. It’s not his dad, or his dad’s friends, or an undead mummy with a knife to his chest. It’s just some guy.  
He hopes he’s not too loud. Hopes he’s not going to ask a million questions about his father. No wonder he’s never been able to make any friends his own age.  
In the quiet, he sighs. The Action Man is long gone, having dropped him off without even turning off the Chrysler. Leave it to Jonas to not even be there. Cheapskate. He could have sent him anywhere else with that massive fortune and clout, but he chose the cheapest school.  
“Ma--” He hears someone at the door, struggling with the lock. “Just go. No, ya can’t come in.”  
His new roommate, no doubt. Sounds like a real brat. Rusty watches as a terrible pale wisp of a man sidles in through the barely open door, suitcase in one scrawny, pink hand.  
“I’ll call ya, I promise.”  
He hears the loud smacking of a mother’s kiss. Recognizable, even if he’s never gotten one himself.  
The stranger sighs as he closes the door behind him. Bastard doesn’t know how good he’s got it. A parent to dote. Whatever. Rusty folds his arms and leans against his bed.  
“Oh, nice…” The guy looks around at the wide area, braces gleaming in the light from the ceiling. “Oh, hey fella--”  
Aaaand there it is. The look of recognition and awe. He grimaces and holds out his hand for a begrudging handshake, eyes fixed on the cracked clock on the far wall. Feels weird making contact with those beady red eyes.  
“No way,” he says as he takes Rusty’s hand. “I thought they’d made a mistake.”  
“No…” Rusty grumbles, quick to take his hand back and stuff them both in his pockets. “No mistake.”  
“Oh man, I shoulda had my ma come in. She has the major hots for your dad.”  
“Yeah, her and every other middle aged woman. Gross.”  
The guy laughs. He laughs. Light and agreeable. A charming snort from his speckled nose. A face only a mother could love, right? Not that he’d know.  
“I’m Pete,” he tells him, turning to swing his suitcase up on the bed. All of their things have been moved in already, boxes scattered about. Clothes and posters. The first thing out of Pete’s suitcase is a stack of gaudy shirts. Jesus Christ, Rusty thinks. He got stuck with a total closet case for a roommate. The short-shorts...great. “What’s your major? Mine’s computer science. Ma says it’s a waste of time and I’ll end up broke and livin’ in a trailer for the resta my life--”  
Rusty lets him ramble. He guesses they have the sciences in common at least. He too, begins to unpack his clothes. Button-down shirts and long, striped pants.Stuff his dad would hate, and that makes him grin a little. The giddy feeling sets in heavy, then, realizing he’s away. Alone except for Pete. Free to do whatever the fuck he wants.  
“Ah--” He hears a record scratch. Pete’s suitcase abandoned on his bed, he’s moved on to setting up his record player in the corner. The sleeve is cast aside, and Rusty squints to see what it is as Pete sets the disc to play.  
The Yes Album.  
“Hope ya don’t mind, Rusty,” Pete says doing a little dance as he stands up and backs away from the turntable. “Total music nerd.” He presses one skinny hand to his chest as if he’s apologizing.  
Rusty shakes his head, that involuntarily smile growing wider.  
Pete goes back to unpacking, nodding his head like a total dweeb. Rusty bites his bottom lip. What does a normal person do in this situation? He has no basis for knowing. He’s never been in a room, with a peer, listening to a band he actually fucking likes and not feeling the disapproving eyes of his father peering over him.  
“Uh…” He coughs, scratching the back of his neck. He’s trying to grow his hair long enough to have a ponytail. “What other music do you like?”  
Pete turns with those dorky braces bared once again, his red eyes seeming to glow like a cat in the dark. Rusty’s not sure he’s ever seen someone look so thrilled…  
They don’t unpack for hours. They sit cross-legged on the floor, sifting through their record collections until their toes go numb.  
“Oh crap--” Pete looks out the window. “It’s late. Do ya um...wanna get dinner or somethin’?” He closes the box where he keeps his records, looking sheepishly at the floor. What’s the big deal? It’s just dinner in the fucking dining hall.  
“Yeah, I could eat,” Rusty says, sighing as he unfolds his legs and tries to stand. Pete does the same, seeming unsteady, his knobby knees useless from the hours of sitting. He trips forward some, arms instinctively reaching to hold onto Rusty’s shoulders.  
“Uh...sorry, pally…” He rights himself. It’s hard for Rusty to tell, given the tint of Pete’s skin, but he swears his ears turnda little red.  
It’s probably nothing. Just a little starstruck touching a celebrity like that.

__

The dining hall is dimly lit but packed. It’s a little overwhelming for Pete. It’s college, and everyone is smart. Smarter than him, maybe. Everyone is smart, and hot, and somehow already looking comfortable here. He finds himself shrinking a little closer to Rusty as they enter, gulping at the sight of so many strangers.  
And of course, they all turn and look. Quite a pair. An albino and the most famous kid on campus. He’s used to it, of course, but these are all new people to stare at him. And his only shield is fucking famous, striding over to an empty table like he owns the damn place. People must think him like a lemming, hitching his loser wagon to Rusty Venture, Boy Adventurer. He grabs them a generous helping of fries and they sit across from one another, focusing on the speckled pattern of the table as if they can ignore the reality of the situation.  
They both inhale to speak--  
“Is it always like this?”  
“Does everyone always stare at you?”  
They chuckle. There’s that damn look on his face again. Bashful, like he’s not a legend, biting his lip. Pete barely remembers the old TV show, the old pictures. But he’s sure Rusty grew up alright. His hair’s redder in person. He’s not the snobby rich kid he’d imagined he’d be. There’s even something...sad about him, now that he’s up close. Maybe it’s the staring. Eyes burning through to your soul has worn him down, for sure. Pete knows that better than anyone. What it’s like to be on display. And he’s not helping himself, he knows, wearing hot pink and having a girl’s haircut. But some time ago he decided he had nothing to lose, appearance-wise. He might as well do as he pleases.  
He might as well have the most famous roommate ever. He’s already going to be a pariah.  
“These are soggy,” Rusty says, twirling one of the fries in his fingers.  
“I like ‘em that way,” Pete says, shrugging as he takes a bite.  
“Soggy fries? Who raised you?”  
Pete points his next fry at him.  
“A very nice lady, thank you very much.”  
“A very nice lady who wants to get frisky with my father!” Rusty searches the plate for the crispiest-looking fry.  
“He ain’t so hot, I don’t get it.”  
“What?” Rusty asks, snapping the lone crispy fry in half.  
“Eh, he looks like Stretch Armstrong.”  
Rusty covers his mouth to laugh, trying to keep any fry bits from coming out.  
“Not your type?”  
“Well, uh…” He gulps. He hadn’t meant to just...say that. Oh, nice to meet you, I’m Pete and I like girls and boys both, but not your dad. “You know...don’t mention it to his face or anything.”  
“Ha! You make it sound as though he might come for a visit at some point.”  
“He won’t?” Pete cocks his head to the side. His mom’ll be coming around by the end of next week, he’s sure.  
“Too busy bringing society into the next age, or whatever. He makes himself out to be some sort of messiah.”  
Pete sneers. Sounds like a real dick. And the way Rusty’s shoulders slope, the way he purses his lips in disdain…  
The stares have faded. The crowd must have realized that they aren’t that entertaining or exciting after all. The dining hall is even emptying out, leaving them in an uncomfortable quiet. Pete needs the noise. He needs to forget himself in both crowded and lonesome places. And he feels a sense of guilt for the sad look on Rusty’s face.  
“Uh...hey, pally, let’s go back upstairs n’ listen to Prince, huh? My ma won’t let me play it at home. Says he’s too...suggestive.” Shit. Fuck. He’s just talked himself into a big old bisexual hole again. “Uh, n-not because that’s the mood I’m in I just...figured your old man would hate it, too--”  
Rusty chuckles, pushing around their plate of disappointing fries.  
“Come on.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dem boys........
> 
> thank you for reading, im really happy to be in this fandom
> 
> comments always appreciated


	2. Radio Gaga

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pete has his first DJ session, and the two roommates having some trouble sorting out their feelings.

Pete’s always heard that the friends you make in the first few months aren’t always the friends you have until graduation. He’d be fine with that, for the most part. Mike’s alright but he’s a total nerd, like, worse than himself. And the girls from down the hall...they’re cute enough, he guesses, but he can’t quite figure out why they wanna hang around him and Rusty. That, and he wishes he could ignore the sinking feeling he gets whenever one of them sits next to his roommate. Like they’re going to steal him away or something. Stupid.

He hopes, at least, that Rusty will stay his friend. He’s already called home to his mom and talked about how well they’re getting on, without mentioning his fame. Pete doesn’t want to deal with the questions. _ Is his father going to visit? What is he like in real life?  _ So he kept it vague.  _ Oh, his name’s T.S. Yeah, like the poet. I dunno, he likes the same music as me _ . If he deflects enough, she’ll just ask about his classes instead. Or his extracurriculars.

“I’m tellin’, ya, man, I’m so fuckin’ nervous…” he laments, muffling his voice with the mouth of their glass bong. 

“They wouldn’t have given you the spot if they didn’t think you could do it, Pete,” Mike assures him, seeming quite frankly tired of hearing about it. He’s one to talk…

“Yeah, nevermind that they were desperate,” Rusty says, “or needed someone at the last minute and felt bad for you--”

“Shut--” Pete coughs, eyes wide and redder than ever, “--up!” He passes the bong to one of the girls, giggling at his expense. “I used to to the morning music at my high school! I’ve got experience.”

“Yeah, yeah…” Rusty waves him off. God, he can be so fucking...withholding, sometimes. When they aren’t alone. When it’s just the two of them he’s so much softer. There’s a kindness in his eyes that disappears when he’s got an audience. When it’s just the two of them, and it’s way too late at night, and they’ve got class in the morning, but all they can think to do is sit on one bed and talk, trading childhood traumas like baseball cards. 

That’s why it stings so much to see him flirt with other people. Because those girls don’t know. They haven’t seen Rusty on the verge of tears, recounting as if for the first time, the moment he became certain his father didn’t love him. They don’t know how good a listener he is, when you tell him how you realized so early on just how different you were…

But he’ll forgive him. Pete has decided that. Rusty’s been through enough without him piling on. It’ll pass, this jealousy. The friends you make in the first few weeks aren’t always friends for life…

“Shit, I gotta go,” Pete says, scrambling to his feet and grabbing for his jacket and bag. “I’m on the air in twenty.”

“Good luck!” A chorus of people who don’t really care.

“White, hang on,” Rusty says, groaning as he stands up. It’s like he’s already an old man in a young man’s body… “I’ll walk with you.”

Pete keeps his bashful smile facing the door. He doesn’t wanna hear whatever Mike has to say about it. 

Rusty follows him out, wrapping his cardigan around his shoulders for the chill of early autumn. The heat hasn’t kicked on in their building yet, cheap assholes that run this place, so they’ve been huddling close some nights.  _ For necessity, _ they say.

“You’re gonna do fine, Pete,” Rusty says, patting him on the back as they leave the atrium. “Like you said, you did the morning music…”

“I’ve got a whole set planned out, T.S.! You’re gonna listen, right?”

Rusty just smiles as if to say there’s nothing else he could plan on doing. Losers like them, they keep their radio tuned together.

Rusty’s hair is getting longer. He can just about gather it in a small ponytail at the nape of his neck. And his hairline recedes like it ought to, having experienced so terrible a youth. Like his body can’t wait to grow up. Pete’s got the opposite problem. His face is stuck in teenage greasiness like he’s doomed to be the same gangly kid he wanted to leave behind.

“Look, uh…” Rusty coughs, remnants of too big a bong rip, surely, as they reach the entrance to the communications building. “It’s...I think it’s kind of cool that you’re doing this. As a freshman, especially. And...as my roommate...”

“Oh--”  _ Cool? _ Nothing Pete’s ever done has been considered that. “A’right…”

Rusty’s brow falls heavy over his eyes. There’s that kindness gone again.

“Don’t fuck up,” he says, turning on his heel, heading back toward their dorm.

_ Cool. Cool. Rusty Venture thinks I’m cool. _ He knows, deep down, that it means nothing. Neither of them are exactly an authority on fitting in. But it matters to hear it from the only person here he’s decided he likes. _ Likes-likes _ . At least for now. That could get messy. He’s sure it’ll go away, sure it’s just something like friendship that he’s mistaking for interest. Yeah.

The older students who run the radio department usher him in with very little fanfare, sit him alone in a booth, and give him the thumbs-up.  _ Jesus fuckin’ Christ _ …

 

__

 

When Rusty gets back to their dorm, it’s empty save for some ash left on the carpet. Animals. He should have known that this extra-large room would become a hub for hangers-on. Girls who just wanted to see what the fuss was all about, if he’d truly turned out as ugly as they’d heard. At least Mike is a friend. At least there’s Pete, who will put aside his math homework to hear Rusty bitch. Pete, who always knows what record to put on. Pete, who talks in his sleep a little.

He turns on the radio and finds the college station, grabbing out the textbook for his pre-req English class. Has to learn how to write essays, as if his father didn’t force him to do that since he could spell. They’re studying Ezra Pound, ABC of Reading. He stares a void into the pages, retaining nothing, his ears and mind to fixed on the radio ads, waiting to hear Pete’s funny and familiar voice come through the static.

He snorts out a giggle at the rocky start of it.

_ “I’m uh...I’m on? Oh--” _

“Oh my god, White…” Rusty laughs into the emptiness of his room, covering his eyes as if he can shake the second-hand embarrassment.

_ “Good evenin’, fellow staties! I’m Pete White and you’re listenin’ to the uh...The White Room!” _

It’s not a terrible name, Rusty guesses. And it starts off predictably enough.  _ Hungry Like the Wolf _ , that damn song they both can’t stop humming. Some Bowie, some King Crimson. Madonna,  _ for the ladies _ .

_ “And now I’d like t’take a moment to play somethin’ a little special.” _

Rusty sits up straighter in his bed, closing his forgotten book and scooching forward to listen more closely.

_ “See uh, I got this love for a little band called Yes. Ya could say they’re pretty important to me and one a’ my friends. My...best friend, I think.” _

Rusty pools his hands between his knees. He feels a distinct warmth behind his ears, an uncomfortable curling of his toes. He didn’t, _ he wouldn’t _ \--

_ “Anyway that’s it from me, folks. Thanks for listenin’, I leave ya with a track off their semi-self-titled album… _ ”

The slow beginning makes Rusty bite the insides of his cheeks. A Venture, of course, the name of the song. About a shitty father and his shitty son.  _ God, White, how long have you been planning this? _ He grips the sheets of his bed and squirms in the way he always had when he’s trying not to feel.

Just to hide away~

He sniffs and wipes his nose with the back of his wrist.  _ Asshole. Sap. Pansy _ . He curses his roommate with every insult under the sun, despite how he can’t fight the smile that pulls at his cheeks. For a while he paces, knowing Pete will be back soon, trying to figure out what the fuck he’s going to scold him with.  _ Do you have any idea how embarrassing that was? What are you, my boyfriend? How dare you cut to the heart of it? _

But when the door unlocks and he turns to look, all he can do is stare at him with his eyes all wet and his shoulder sloped. All he can do is stride forward and take Pete by the wrist, drag him inside, kick closed the door behind him.

“Rust--”

How pathetic.  _ This _ is his first kiss. With some pizza-faced nerd with a lame-ass radio show. Some albino so in touch with his feelings that he can pick that perfect song. A guy with lips soft enough to surprise, with shaking elbows so clearly marking his nervousness. They seem to sink into one another, Pete’s arms falling over Rusty’s shoulders and his strong jaw parting to let him in. He shouldn’t be good at this. He shouldn’t even be  _ doing  _ it, but they’re drifting backwards toward the bed. Compelled and stupid. 

“You asshole--” Rusty breathes, hanging tight onto the collar of that repulsive pink shirt. 

Leaning against the mattress, they stare. Pete places one impossibly pale hand on the back of Rusty’s head, feeling the soft nape of his neck and the messiness of his blossoming ponytail. Rusty gulps. It’s happening.

“Ya didn’t like it?” Pete asks, quiet, red eyes searching him even though he ought to already know the answer.

Of course he liked it. He loved it, and he doesn’t know how else to show it but to spill years and years of repressed hormones, all at once. Clumsy and green, they entwine on the twin-sized bed, hands searching aimlessly, pulling at fabric and just too shy to undress. They’re both so skinny...their hips will have bruises from the way they press into one another, ashamed but enthralled at their own stiffness, twitching, and sweat. It makes them shiver in a way they’ve never felt.

And god, does Rusty  _ want. _ He’s just not sure what would fill his hunger. He’s never done this before, and hardly ever imagined it would be with a guy. Where do you touch? What do you say? How do you know what to do? Maybe Pete’s done this before, but judging by how nervous he seems, maybe not. Maybe he’s only been attracted to men in theory and never in practice.

“Pete--” he says, breathless, pulling away, curling his fingers into that soft, white, long hair. “Um...can we just…”

“Yeah…” Pete smiles, looking dopey and dizzy. It’s...cute. Rusty can’t help but feel charmed. “Yeah.” He shifts, shimmying backward toward the wall to make room for Rusty to simply lay beside him. He feels safe with a scrawny, pasty arm over his chest. Feels giddy with knobby ankles laced between his own.

To want is exhausting. He drifts off without setting the alarm. Fuck English class. What did Ezra Pound ever know about any of this?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rusty......his poems were actually pretty sensual..........
> 
> This is filling me with joy! I hope to capture the newness of it all.


	3. Not Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a short chapter that’s pretty much here to establish the nature of their relationship at this point before the next leg of the story.

The White Room is a swift success. Requests come in, anonymous people asking just who that sweet dedication was for. 

_ “None of ya business, next caller.” _

Rusty always laughs. He gets more songs sent over the airways to him, and he ignores how they just get sweeter and sweeter.  _ Heart of Glass. _ Goddammit Pete. He’s never been...seduced before. If one can even call it that. It seems more like fumbling, on Pete’s part. He hemorrhages affection like it’s been building up in his every pore.

No wonder his skin’s so bad.

But Rusty still touches it. Slow and unsure, hands sliding over those pale, skinny shoulders, tracing zits, counting. He always feels ashamed of the awestruck look on his face that he  _ knows  _ is obvious. Like he’s never seen collarbones before. Never seen arms or shoulders in his life. But Pete’s the same, if he can read it correctly. He looks so overwhelmed whenever they lay side by side, whenever they go a little farther. 

They don’t talk about it. They don’t know what to say. They just dive headfirst into touch and taste.

It only takes a few weeks before they find themselves sliding into third, as they say. Pete, his cheeks impossibly flushed as he tugs at the waistband of Rusty’s underpants.

“Uh—“ He gulps. “I’ve never done this before.”

“No shit…”

“Shut up, I’m…do ya want me to or not?”

“Y-Yeah…” Rusty gulps, nods, lays his head back on the pillow. He can feel the soft pool of red hair behind him, wonders if he looks at all magnificent or just as nervous as he feels. But Pete, so focused, lips parted above him and hovering, so unsure… In all his youth, innocence has escaped him. Growing up on display, six years old and threatened with death, he’s never seen a look of purity even on his own face. And now, a man between his thighs, sweat on his temples and drool from his mouth... _ this _ is that sweetness. This is joy unmatched, it’s how you’re supposed to feel when you’re brand new and innocent. He gasp at the first touch of lips to his skin.  _ Nights in White Satin _ plays softly in the room, turned down way low so they can still hear one another’s sighs.

And dammit, if it isn’t better than he could have imagined. 

They keep it secret. They don’t even know what  _ it _ is. It’s not love, because neither of them know what that is. It’s not dating, because when they go out it’s chaste and friendly. No one asks questions, at least not out loud or to their faces. They’re just Pete and Rusty, inseparable and always laughing quietly. Retreating to their room, presumably to smoke more weed, listen to more music. 

Of course, they wonder if people know the truth. They can’t help it.

The Spring semester comes faster than they could have expected. The weather grows warm and the last pockets of snow are melting into the green grass. Their shoes are always muddy. They wake each morning, on time these days because they need to get their grades up, entwined on one bed or another. There’s no schedule. There is just sleepiness from hours spent studying. By May, Pete works up the courage.

“Uh, Rust…” He’s given up on the whole  _ T.S _ . business. He’s got his white and feathery head on Rusty’s chest, comfortable in the shadow of a biology textbook. 

“Yeah?” Rusty asks, mumbling into Pete’s hair, eyes scanning the same line for the tenth time.  _ The DNA forms a double-helix… _

“What uh...what ya doin’ over break?” Because  _ he _ has no plans. His mom has some new boyfriend she won’t stop calling him about. Douchebag is sure to try and keep him out of the house…

“Going home,” he says simply, shutting the book and setting it on the bedside table. “Unfortunately.”

“Ah…” Pete taps his skinny fingers on Rusty’s chest. 

“Do you...want to...come with me?” Asked slowly, unsure. Pete can hear his heart rate increase, and he tries not to smile.

“I mean, I figya...ya know…” He wiggles away, propping himself up on his elbow. “Since we’re like…” Dammit. His last final isn’t for another fucking week, he’s gonna be stuck with this awful decision until then…

“Like what?” Rusty asks, passing the buck. Of course. 

“Whateva…” His ears run hot. “Ya don’t want me to meet Jonas?” They’ve started calling the old man by his first name. Pete’s explained that he’s hardly a  _ dad _ , after all. “I could be like...a buffer. Between you.”

Rusty’s quiet a moment, sighing and turning onto his side to face Pete. The mere mention of going home seems to make him sorrowful. Pete, on instinct, after months of being his only comfort, reaches out to brush some hair behind Rusty’s ear. 

“Yeah...yeah, you should come,” Rusty says, grabbing gently at Pete’s wrist. “But we can’t tell him.”

Pete’s not sure what he expected. They’re not in love, they’re not official. And Jonas, despite his friendship with Col. Gentleman, seems like a bit of a dick about this sort of thing. And he’d hate to make things even worse between Rusty and his dad. Though he won’t admit it, he’s curious. He wonders if he can look the old man in the eye, or if he’ll cower and defer, like everybody else. He wonders if he can even speak.

“A’right.” It’s not like it would be any different if the roles were reversed. Pete’s mom’s new boyfriend probably wouldn’t approve either. “Even though uh…” He gulps, pulling the pilling lint from the comforter. “There’s somethin’ to tell, right?”

“Yeah...yeah. There’s something to tell.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ;-; thanks for reading


	4. Cruel Summer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pete and Rusty go to the Venture compound for summer break.

 

He feels small in the back of that Chrysler, despite the way his knobby knees have to bend to fit. Their driver has the front seat pushed all the way back, and Pete’s too polite to beg for a little more space.

He wonders if Rusty always felt this way, getting carted around. He’s looking out the window, playing with his own hair like a scab to scratch. Pete knows his father hates it, that ponytail, the tight jeans, the beard. He can’t imagine he’ll be a fan of his look, either.  _ Don’t let him treat you like a science experiment,  _ Rusty warned. Pete struggles to believe that any one man could be so heartless, but then again, the stories he’s heard…

“There it is, in all its glory…” Rusty deadpans as they approach the main gate of the compound. The statue shines in the summer sun, the green grass seems to glow with freshness. It must take a fortune, keeping this place so nice...God, he’s glad they didn’t decide to spend the summer at his place, instead. The raised ranch with the basement always under construction. “Hm, remember psych class last semester?” 

Pete snorts. The statue certainly is the most phallic of monuments, reaching high into the sky, the image of masculinity.

“Freud would have a lot to say.”

“My dad’s working on that. A time machine so they can compare dicks.”

“Ha…”

In the front, their hired driver coughs. Pete feels guilty, worried. Like it’ll all get back to Jonas in the end. He bites his bottom lip, antagonizing a zit that just won’t pop. His skin always gets caught on his braces. Rusty’s, too...he’s left little marks, on accident. He hopes no one asks. Hopes no one can tell by the way he stares, and dotes, and laughs at all Rusty’s jokes. It’s so obvious, he’s almost thankful for how thick-headed Rusty can be. That jealousy, that infatuation he was sure would pass has not faded away. He’s just too much of a wuss to ask if Rusty minds it at all. If he wouldn’t mind, if they could just...be honest with each other. If he wouldn’t mind rooming with him again next year. Maybe getting their own apartment…

But they’ve arrived at the door, and the driver lifts their suitcases from the massive trunk. The building seems to reflect the sun more strongly than it ought, and Pete is quick to run under the awning to save his skin. 

“Ah! Rusty!” That booming, jovial voice rings from the open door. There he is. Massive in stature, glowing in intellect. Pete balls his fists. Anger and anxiety, unsure how to act in front of this myth of a man.

But it doesn’t matter, because he’s entirely ignored. Jonas pushes past him to embrace his son. Rusty looks so waif-like in those arms. Like he’ll be snapped in half. And his body is limp, and he doesn’t reciprocate. He looks like a ragdoll.

“Yeah, hi, dad, cut it out…” He wiggles free from the embrace. “Can we just go inside? My friend is melting.”

Pete chuckles, nervous, charmed to be cared about in the least.

“Right, right. Come on in, boys. How rude of me…”

Jonas places one heavy hand on Pete’s skinny, sloping shoulder, and he nearly crumbles from the weight of it.

_ Friend _ . That’s what they agreed on. They can’t tell him. They can’t tell a soul--

“I hope you don’t mind, Rusty, but I have a few guests staying at the moment and you two will have to share a room. Though, I know that’s nothing new!”

 

\--

 

A room, he said. Didn’t mention it would be just one queen-sized bed and a nightstand. 

But they can be good. Just until his dad’s guests leave, then they can sleep separately, and it won’t be so hard…

It won’t be so hard to avoid falling into the sheets together and kissing, touching, talking. All Rusty wants to do is complain into Pete’s nearly concave chest.  _ By ‘guests’ he means women he’s sleeping with. Did you see how he ignored you? What an asshole… _ And they nearly drift off, entwined until there’s a knock at the door. They nearly yelp, shuffling away from one another.

“Time for dinner, boys! The entire team will be joining us.”

Wonderful. That’s all he needs, more hazing from The Action Man.

 

Things are easy for the first few weeks. No one asks them any questions, they let them wander the grounds of the compound and stay up late in the den to watch movies. They retire to their shared bed and fool around, stopping just short of what they so desperately want. Rusty, especially, would love to desecrate his father’s property with sex. But he’s just too afraid to ask.  _ Hey, do you wanna take my virginity in my childhood home? _ Jesus…

One night, when the grownups are all too drunk to notice, they sneak out onto the roof. It’s a clear night, the air still warm from the hot sun all day. They’ve snuck some whiskey from the cabinet, and their giddy laughter echoes across the vast property. They talk a little too loud, kiss a little too much. But they haven’t been free in weeks. They haven’t been alone in  _ weeks _ . 

Their hands are entwined as they look out over the horizon. Ornate with that gaudy statue and the fort-like gates of the compound. 

“It’s nice here,” Pete says, kicking his feet idly as they hang off the roof.

“Objectively, maybe,” Rusty retorts, sighing, leaning his head all the way back to meet the moon with a stare. “Are you sure you don’t want to just...go home?”

“And hear my ma with her new boyfriend? No thanks, pally.” He shivers then. “Unless ya...want me to go.”

“That’s not what I said.” In the moonlight, he wonders if Pete can see his smile. It’s so rarely wide these days. He’s not sure it has been since before he became the symbol of American boyhood. “I’m glad you’re here. I…” He takes another generous sip from the bottom-shelf whiskey they stole. “I’m glad I met you.”

It’s so difficult, being sweet. He grips Pete’s hand so hard it’s like he’s worried about falling off the roof, grinds his teeth so much he can hear it echo in his head. He’s relieved to feel Pete scooting closer along the roof toward him, relieved to feel his chapped lips on his cheek. He exhales as if for the first time all summer. Pete sighs and rests his chin on Rusty’s shoulder.

“D’ya think your dad knows?” he mumbles.

“He’s too far up his own ass. You know...to notice what’s up mine.”

“Ha!” Pete squeezes Rusty’s knee, giggles into his shirtsleeve. “About that, uh...it’s been a long time n’, uh…”

He trails off. Any way he hears it in his mind sounds so stupid. _ I think we should have sex!  _ Dorky. 

“Yeah.” Rusty says simply. “Fuck it. If I’m gonna sleep with someone...like, sleep-sleep…as in not sleep--”

“I want it to be you, too, Rust.” 

They walk sloppily past the party-goers, passed out across all manner of couches, stepping over the puddles of vomit and spilled wine. Leave it to the old folks to be the least responsible ones on the property. But they’re careful not to wake anyone, trying their best to be quiet and to clasp one another’s hands so tight in case they trip.

Once in their shared room they lock the door. Twice, three times. They don’t bother turning on the light, like it will somehow be easier if they don’t have to see every inch of skin, if they don’t have to see the way they grin and blush and worry. They kiss standing, silhouetted by the moonlight through the window above the bed. The smacking sounds of their lips are louder than the crickets outside. They, too, are full of summer want.

It feels like there ought to be music playing. Something sad, something hot. In his head Pete hears Ian Curtis droning on about whatever nihilistic nonsense he’s a sucker for.  _ We were strangers _ . They were strangers, but now they’re close, chest-to-chest, and Rusty is pulling at the hem of his shirt to lift it over his head. They were strangers, but now he’s wincing at the loud creaking of the mattress as he ascends Rusty’s bony body to kiss him again, again, tilting his hips into his as if they could pass right through one another. Isn’t that what it’s supposed to be like? Two people as one? It’s stupid, he knows, no matter how inseparable they are. Rusty’s world just isn’t the same as his. He knows that now. Rusty’s world is opulence and a towering figure over you. Pete’s is...he’s not sure. Empty, most of the time. He fills it with records and pot and the sound of his own voice. He could fill it up with that noise Rusty makes when his neck is so gently kissed, when he can tell Pete’s being so careful not to nick him with his braces.

He’s pathetic, because he packed a bottle of oil-based lube like some sort of perv. But it’s better than stealing it from Rusty’s dad, he guesses.

“Um...do ya want me to...who should, uh…?”

Rusty, for all his stuffiness, manages to laugh. He tosses his arms around Pete’s neck and brings him close.

“You do it…”

The sound of that makes him shiver and growl, just a little. His fingers curl into the bedsheets and he feels so weak, like his knobby knees could give out.

It’s awkward, it’s painful, it’s short. They’re sure it ought to feel better than this, even if it does feel good. But isn’t it supposed to change your life? Isn’t it supposed to make you a different person? All it does is make them laugh softly into one another’s necks. It makes them come, and it makes them sweaty, and it makes them whisper sappy nonsense in the night as they twitch away the last vestiges of pleasure.

But they fall asleep nestled like spoons, talking like grown-ups. Like they know a damn thing, now that they’ve fucked. 

“Next time it’ll be better, Rust, I promise,” Pete says.

 

\--

 

In the morning they still feel like the same people they were before. It’s like some hex that didn’t work. They’re the same people, but they smile differently at one another. Bashful, knowing, as they eat their over-easy eggs and drink their coffee. Black, because they’re college men, now. Sugar is for children.

Jonas enters, looking unfortunately majestic in his bathrobe, his arms folded and his gaze stern.

“Rusty,” he says, not breaking eye contact as he pours himself a cup of coffee. “Finish your breakfast. We have to talk.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> subtitle: losing your virginity is never a magical experience like they say it is! but it can still be romantic!
> 
> i'm so sorry for the obviously angsty turn this is going to take 
> 
> gotta get worse before it gets better


	5. Tears On My Pillow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The fallout.

    He hears it as if he’s under water. _I cannot believe you, son, in my own house! If you had told me the nature of your relationship I would have never agreed to let him come here!_

    The creaking of the mattress was too loud. The smell of sex and the sighs of joy were just too rampant. Idiots, both of them. Colonel Gentleman, for once the hero, tries to help. _Jonas, there’s nothing wrong with it--_

    But as always, the good doctor is masterful at silencing everyone around him. Every soul is forced to leave the room, and it’s just them, alone, with what feels like an ocean between them.

    “Dad, I--”

    “I don’t want to hear it. I don’t appreciate being lied to, I don’t appreciate having to hear my own son degrading himself in my home. Can you imagine how _embarrassed_ I was?”

    “You!? _You’re_ embarrassed?” Rusty shouts, springing to his feet. God, he feels dizzy. He’s so rarely had the guts to yell at his father. “I’m nineteen years old, dad! I’m in college. I don’t know what you expect from me--”

    “I expect you to _talk_ to me, son. If you were seeing someone you should have mentioned it--”

    “White and I are not... _seeing_ each other. It’s not like that. We just--”

    “You’re just messing around? I thought I raised you better than that.”

    “You’re one to talk, Don Juan. That’s right, I took a _poetry_ class this semester!”

    “I have never been so disrespected in my life!”

 

\--

 

    Pete listens from the hall. He’s been permitted, if only out of pity. Colonel Gentleman gave him a sorry look, patted him on the shoulder, mumbled something about how Jonas will get past it.

    Hard to believe that when it feels like his chest has been run through with a spike.

_Just messing around._

    He guesses that’s what they agreed on, if silently. But still, it stings to hear Rusty deny that there’s anything permanent, anything deep. And it stings to hear his father be so cruel.

    _I should have known, Rusty, the way he flaunts himself like some sort of...concubine! Who raised him?_

_A...a very nice lady_ …

    He hugs his knees to his chest as he sits against the wall. He ought to go. He ought to start packing. It was a dumb idea, coming here. Like he could pretend for two fucking months that he feels nothing, that it means nothing. That he doesn’t think about the next semester, and the one after that, about finally holding hands in public. Telling Mike he was right to make all those jokes. _Stupid_.

    _I want him out of my house. And I want you to start acting like the boy I raised, Rusty. It’s not fair to me, opening my home to you--_

_It’s my home too, dad!_

    Their voices fade as Pete makes his way down the hall, stumbling toward the room they’ve been sharing. His things are strewn all over the room, so he has to be sloppy if he’s going to be quick. In his heartache, in his foolishness, he rips a page from his journal to leave Rusty a note. He owes him that much.

—

Rusty tries to stifle his sniffling as he makes his way back to the bedroom. Asshole. He should just leave. He should just take Pete and go to his house, fuck the consequences. He should take him and go back to school, squat in the dorms until someone notices. As if any punishment could be worse than this terrible feeling.

But the room is empty, and neat. No bright clothing strewn across the floor, no unmade sheets and a distinct lack of that awful cologne Pete insists on wearing to mask his sweat. All that’s left is a piece of paper on the bed, folded as neatly as shaking hands can manage.

_Rust-_

_I’m sorry. I had a good time. See you in August._

_-Pete_

He drops the note to the ground. So that’s how it is? One night and then he’s a ghost like his pale ass ought to be.

Fucking Pete. Fucking Jonas. He falls face-first onto the queen sized bed and sighs. He can’t even cry. He doesn’t do that anymore. He’s a grown man.

 

—

 

Pete knocks on the door of his house, bag slung over his shoulder and eyes fixed on the space between his shoes. It feels a bit like defeat, but he won’t explain why. Not to his mother.

Not to this asshole, who answers the door in a bathrobe with a cigarette hanging from his mouth. He looks Pete up and down, squinting as if trying to gauge if he’s better or worse than the pictures on the mantle inside.

“Kid’s here!” he yells back into the raised ranch, and then he walks away. Pete steps in, careful to wipe his shoes on the doormat, as always. His hands in his small-small pockets, he softens. There’s a comfort here, even if it’s not where he wants to be. He _wants_ to be back in a bed, with his best friend, listening to The Moody Blues and getting high and getting off. But there’s a god of a man who won’t let that happen. Ever again.

“Peter!” his mother squeals, hobbling down the stairs to embrace him. He stays limp in her arms. “You look just awful, darling…”

He can’t help it anymore. He’s kept it in for the entire bus ride, but it’s happening and it’s happening now.

“Ma—“ he croaks, bending his neck to rest his forehead on her shoulder. It wouldn’t be the first time this poor woman had to deal with salty tear stains on her shirt. He’s always been sensitive. Soft. What a good first impression for her new boyfriend. Crybaby Pete, just like the first day of every school year. But this is _worse._ Rusty liked him anyway, weird skin and weird hair includes. Rusty touched him anyway, and never laughed. Only at his jokes. “Ma...it was terrible…”

It’s still another month before the new semester. Maybe that’ll be enough time for him to get over it, for him to stop waiting for the phone to ring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to cry! Jonas Venture: ruiner of everything
> 
> Will update again soon.


	6. Wounded Animals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys go back to school and fail to reckon with what happened over the summer.

The late summer is suffocating. Rusty insisted on driving himself to campus this time, windows down in the beater his dad let him buy. Maybe out of guilt. He’s just glad to be free. Well, free as he’s allowed to be. He’d been sent off with a vague warning about caring for himself, focusing on his studies.

He’s rooming alone this year. Probably for the best. Worked out  _ so great  _ last time, when he had a roommate. And he hasn’t heard a word from Pete since he left. And he knows he had the phone number to the compound. He remembers writing it down and sticking it in the chest pocket of that stupid polo shirt he wears…

He’s expected in the lobby. Building meeting. The same old shit: don’t smoke pot, but if you have to smoke pot, be quiet and blow it out the window. Don’t drink, but if you have to drink don’t throw up on the carpet. He makes his way down the stairs, slow and reluctant to spend time around any other living thing. He’s had enough bad company. 

The lobby is dimly lit, the couches largely empty. Except,  _ of fucking course _ , for Mike and Pete, chatting quietly, playing Go Fish like a couple of children. Rusty gulps. He’s pictured it countless times, seeing him again. Some nights it’s romantic, some nights it’s as if they’ve never touched. A cold shoulder or a warm kiss, and nothing in between.

But the reality defies his strict expectations.

“Hey, Rust,” Pete says, waving him over. His voice is softer than Rusty remembers it. 

“Rusty!” Mike says, a wide grin on his face. Must have been a lonesome summer for him, too…But it can’t feel anything like the pit in Rusty’s stomach. Pete looks...tired. Growing up, maybe. Nearly twenty and already too grown, just like him. They have so much they could talk about, but isn’t it just like them to pretend they’re more interested in Mike’s stories.

“—and then he pushed me into the pool—“

Zoning out, again underwater, he stares at Pete, how his hands pool in his lap, anxiously wringing. He looks thinner. He looks...like his skin is clearing up a little. His hair, soft, begging for fingers through it...god dammit. It’s been a long summer of throwing rocks at the back wall of the lab, of beating of to nothing. He feels so bereft of what he knows could have been something like love, whatever that is.

But by the way Pete laughs, the way he eases into the couch cushions, Rusty can tell he’s moved past it.

Very well. He’s got a degree to earn.

 

—

 

“Some theorize one day there will be a global network, accessible to everyone—“ Pete’s professor drones on. Funny how a guy can make something exciting sound so boring. He yawns, ever foolish for taking 8 AM classes, and looks out the window. It’s becoming autumnal, overcast. Thank god, he can walk around campus without something to shield him, sometimes.

Beneath his desk he rubs his knobby knees together. The anxiety that gnaws at him is constant, aching. He knows how to name it, place it, but he refuses. Classes are easy enough, Mike is a fine roommate. But each night he goes to bed, knowing that Rusty is a few floors above him. He wonders if he has visitors.  _ That  _ kind. He supposes, if it’s true, he should feel some sort of pride. He was his  _ first. _ He’ll never be his best. Even if he  _ knows  _ he could make him crazy. He could melt that man. He dreams of it, sometimes. He’s got nothing else to think about. Even if any opportunity had presented itself over the summer, he hardly felt like hooking up with anyone. Not that he could, with his mom and  _ Dave _ breathing down his skinny neck. 

“What’s been your problem lately, Pete?” Mike asks, so rarely perceptive that it makes Pete sit up straighter, whip his head around to look at him.

“Heh? What are ya talkin’ about?” He’s a very good liar. He’s proven it.

“Ever since we got back you’ve been all sad and stuff…” Mike closes his textbook and turns in his chair, draping an elbow over the back of it. “Something happen over the summer?”

Pete pouts, laying back down with a huff. 

“I ah...met someone. And they kinda disappeared on me.” He’s one to talk, he knows. They both seemed to evaporate like so much water in the hot sun… 

“Ooh, a girl?”

“...sure.” He bends his knees and curls his toes. He’s on the brink of spilling it. All of it. “H...her dad kicked me out.”

“That’s romantic…”

“Didn’t feel like it, Mike…”

Pete rolls over onto his stomach, makes a pillow with his hands.

“Wanna get drunk about it?”

“Ooh! Mike Sorayama, advocating for debauchery. Am I in the right room?” he teases, groaning as he rights himself.

“Yeah! We’ll go get Rusty and stay up all night!”

“Slow down there, tiger, ya got class in the morning.” Staying up all night. With Rusty. The implication makes him blush. Foolishly giddy, he wonders if he can still fix things. If Rusty will come over and confess that he’s sorry, he loves him, he’s angry but he’ll get over it… He ought to know better than to get his hopes up. And they plummet, once Mike comes back with Rusty in tow.

“Only for a few hours, Mike. I have a test tomorrow,” he says, whipping some of that long hair over his shoulder. Pete sighs, gripping hard the neck of the bottle of cheap wine he holds between his knees.

“We all got midterms, Rust. Just relax,” Pete insists.  _ Because you’re smart. Because I’ve seen the way you focus when you study… _ Rusty gives him a tired look, like a half-assed smirk, and then snatches the bottle from him to take a generous sip. 

“Ugh...what is this?”

Pete shrugs and takes the bottle back to read the label.

“ _ White wine product _ ,” he reads. “Not fancy enough for ya, rich kid?”

“Fuck off…” He presses a hand to Pete’s head and shoves him away, gently.

In a way, it feels the same as last year. Talking about their classmates, their professors. Idle gossip and drunken laughter. But the night winds down, and Mike, ever the lightweight, falls asleep on the floor. They cover him with a blanket like they’re hiding a dead body, giggling as they back away from him, trying to keep quiet. Clinging to one another’s hands as if that might help… 

Walking backwards, Pete trips, falling hard onto his bed. It’s nothing compared to the wide, comfortable mattress on which they last laid together. 

His head spins, and it’s hardly even the fault of the booze. He gulps, once again face-to-face. It feels familiar, but frightening. Rusty runs a thumb over his trembling lip.

This could fix everything. Even this, sloppy and stupid, in front of Mike if he wakes. Drunk and sad. It could fix everything if Pete could just wrap his arms around his neck and pull him in. Tight enough so that he knows he’s sorry.

“...I’m not doing this again,” Rusty says then, his brow lowering. He retracts that sweet, soft touch, and slides off of Pete, off of the bed. 

“What does  _ that  _ mean?” Pete demands, sitting up and leaning forward. His words slur, they sound too bitter, they betray his decision to act like he’s not carrying a torch.

“I just...I can’t, White, okay? I have to go.”

He slams the door so hard it wakes up Mike, it makes Pete’s heart skip a beat. 

It’s 2 in the morning. Class is at 8. He gulps down the rest of his “wine product.”

“What happen...ed?” Mike struggles to ask, squinting into the dim light.

“Nothing. Go to bed.”

Nothing and nothing ever again. 

 

—

 

He’s got a better time slot these days. Noon to two PM, just when everyone has lunch and no class. Rusty still listens, of course. Even if he’s cruel, he’s loyal.

_ “Afternoon. I’m ya host Pete White, n’ your listenin’ to The White Room. Uh...just...here’s some Joy Division.” _

Rusty shuts his eyes. That’s Pete’s sad music. But it’s also his horny music.  _ We were strangers… _ he’s so dramatic. But the soft yet dark tone of “I remember nothing” make him sigh, make him feel that pit in his chest grow deeper. He feels as if the sound will hollow him out. 

But he’s already made up his mind. What happens if they  _ do _ get together, anyway? He’s too proud to make it public. He’s too scared to tell his dad to fuck off. He’s too unsure to just  _ talk _ to Pete.  _ I think I could love you but I don’t know what that is. _ He flicks off the radio. 

Pete will get over it. He’ll get over it too.

They were strangers. They can do it again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me @ me: come here I just wanna talk
> 
> I ALSO hated this chapter at first and then when I finished it I felt better about it. I’m doing some stuff thematically that I’m actually kinda proud of? Anyway,


	7. Here Comes The Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pete has terrible coping skills!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for drug use

They say things really start to pick up when you’re a sophomore. You’re just far enough away from childhood that you can cling still to your last vestiges of reckless abandon, but you’re old enough to talk like a grown man. You’re old enough to do shots and not throw up. You should be old enough to know when enough is enough, but Pete can only apply that to the random, drunken affection he manages to receive.

“I’m just not that into ya, baby…” And a slap across his speckled face. Barely hurts when he’s drunk off his ass. Often he relies on Mike to drag him back to their dorm, often he wakes up on the floor struggling to piece together the puzzle of the night prior, realizing he has to get it together and get to class. He’s smart enough, at least, to make it through midterms. He’s keen enough to know how to bullshit his way through tests, essays, excuses.

He’s such a good liar. He lies every time he sees Rusty, in passing, getting to a party when he’s just about to leave. _Hey pally, have fun_...but in his head he’s shrieking some pathetic, moony nonsense.

The radio show ought to be getting him laid, but all he wants to do is talk about the tracks he plays. _Yeah, ya see, Dylan is and has always been overrated so I try t’ keep him out of it…_ Rusty would understand. He always did, even when they disagreed. He’d still let Pete put on whatever damn record he pleased.

They always agreed on Steely Dan. _Aja_ plays softly in the background of the party, hosted by some senior with their own multi-level apartment. The beer is piss, and the weed is bad. He’s not sure if that’s reality or his tolerance talking, but still he leans against the wall, vacant and vacuous as everyone else in the room.

“Pete.” Some Junior that works in the communications building comes along, elbows him in the arm. “You look like you could use a pick-me-up.”

 _Ya got no idea_.

Forever a dork, he sneezes the first time he tries to snort cocaine. Everyone dissolves into a fit of giggling and wheezing, but he can’t even feel embarrassed. He just feels like his skin is being tightened around his bones. He feels like his cheeks will ache forever from the grinning.

He feels like he can graduate by sunrise. He feels like he doesn’t have to be in love at all.

 

\--

 

“I’m telling you, Rusty, there’s something wrong with him,” Mike protests, fighting to stay in the doorway of Rusty’s single room.

“What are you coming to _me_ for, then? Get your R.A.” He tries to close the door in his face, but damn, that little man’s arm is stronger than it looks, and he pins the door open.

“I’m serious, Rusty. I’m worried about him.” Mike enters the room, brushing past Rusty with an odd confidence. Maybe he’s finally gotten laid…

“So ask _him_ about it. What am I supposed to do?” He lets the door fall closed, accepts his fate. He sits in his desk chair and rests his elbows on his knees.

“I dunno, he...you’re his best friend.”

“Does _he_ know that?” he snaps. Fuck. He’d made a promise to himself he’d not act so jealous, so needy. If Pete doesn’t need him, then he won’t need Pete. It’s only fair. Cut the baby in half and see if he gives a damn. He sighs and turns back to his schoolwork. “What do you want me to do, Mike? Babysit him?”

“...kind of…”

Mike looks down between his toes. White socks, just like Pete. Rusty wonders if they climb all the way up his calves like he’s some sort of basketball player. He wonders if Mike ever sees him change. He wonders if Mike ever...Jesus Christ.

“Look, Rusty, he’s going to a party tonight. Just go with him. I can’t, I have to tutor Lesie.”

Rusty chooses not to validate that with a comment, snide or otherwise.

“Fine. Where’s this party at?”

 

He shows up at the frat house, cheap six pack in hand. It’s the balding that lets him get away with buying booze at the ripe old age of twenty. Pete never minded it... he used to kiss his ever-expanding forehead.

Nope. None of that. He’s here as a favor.

He pays the cover charge. _Five dollars? Insane_. It’s booming with bad pop music, the kind of shit he’d never hear during The White Room. Girls, everywhere, scantily clad. Guys in letter jackets holding red cups. It’s always like something out of a movie, but he’s not sure what part he’s supposed to play. He’s certainly not the protagonist he once was. No one wants to watch a movie or a show about someone who’s getting too old too soon, some pathetic guy who’s here for no good reason.

Fucking Pete. He should be able to take care of himself, shouldn’t he? He certainly seemed fine leaving to be alone last summer--

His bitterness makes him want to drink, and so he cracks open one of the bottles of beer and sets the rest of the six pack on the counter. For the wolves. He needs to find Pete so he can rid himself of guilt. He needs to find Pete…

Golden Years, out of the mess of bad tunes. Pete loves this song. _Don’t let me hear you say life’s taking you nowhere_ ...he’d sing it to him whenever he got into one of his unbearable fits of leftover childhood depression. _You’re gonna be fine, Rust. You’ll graduate and be the only Dr. Venture anyone thinks of…_

“Have you seen Pete?” he asks a group of vaguely recognizable peers. They point up the stairs. _Great._ He’s probably getting off with some near-stranger from his sociology class.

Rusty climbs the stairs, holding white-knuckle onto the railing like he’s already drunk. What’s he so afraid of? It’s nothing he hasn’t seen before, if that is what awaits him. But that’s just it. He’s seen it before, but it was in a mirror. He’s seen it before but it was in his dreams. No one else should get to touch that pale pink skin like he’s done.

“Pete?” he calls down the hallway, taking a hefty sip of beer as if to gird himself against his fate. “Come on, asshole, Mike told me I had to come babysit you…”

He rounds a corner, noting how awful and massive this house is. Just like his own. In the corner of the corridor he sees a familiar shape. A drunk albino having gotten in over his head.

“Jesus Christ, White…” He stomps over, vitriol stewing in his chest because he’s too late to do a damn thing to help. Because Pete’s gone and probably gotten alcohol poisoning or hit his head or some stupid shit like that. Because Rusty should have been there, by his side, whispering to him to take it easy…

Even in the dim light of the hallway, he can see the stream of blood that trickles down onto Pete’s lips and chin.

“Oh for fuck’s sake--” He kneels, thoughtlessly bringing his sleeve to Pete’s nose to mop up the blood. “Did you get in a fight or something? We both know you can’t…” Oh. _Well._ That explains it. That dazed but energetic look in his eyes as he comes to. “Are you on coke, White?”

He just grins. Asshole.

“Come on. We’re getting out of here,” Rusty commands, hooking his arms beneath Pete’s, trying to lift him. “You dumbass…”

It’s a hard journey, back out of the fraternity house. Pete’s just about useless despite how hard he seems to cling, digging his nails into Rusty’s back and chest as he guides him to the door.

“Can’t fucking believe you…” Rusty mumbles, unnerved by the proximity of his angry lips to Pete’s reddened ear.

“Ya saved me, Rust!”

“Shut the fuck up, White.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yikes


	8. Tears For Fears

He’s sure to grab the abandoned beer on their way back out. He’s not getting through this sober, not if he has a choice. And if Pete can be fucked out of his mind, why shouldn’t he? Carrying his heavy load, he traipses across campus, mumbling to himself until they finally reach his dorm.

He pours Pete onto the bed. His long limbs spread like roots across the mattress. If it weren’t for the blood from his nose, he’d almost look euphoric, peaceful despite his high. There’s something undeniable about the sight, though, that makes Rusty bite his bottom lip. He’s had him in his bed before, had him grinning just as wide. He cannot help his ego, how he ponders if Pete has to turn to drugs to possibly match the ecstasy they once shared…

Stupid. No, he’s just a dumbass who does things because he thinks they’ll make him happy. Like coke, or a radio show where he talks to everyone but no one at all.

“What am I gonna do with you, White?” he asks, rhetorical, exasperated, and then walks away toward his desk, pinching the bridge of his nose between his fingers.

“Whatever ya want, Rust. Been waitin’ for ya to ask…” Pete practically sings, squirming gleefully, pulling at the soft blankets to wrap himself up.

Rusty sighs. He walked right into that one. 

“That’s not what I meant. Besides, you’re high out of your mind.” He turns back to him, presses a hand to his sweaty temple because he has no idea what the fuck else you’re supposed to do. The Action Man only ever did smack, that he knows of. That’s all he’s seen.

“So…” Pete rolls onto his side, trapping that hand against his head. “If I wasn’t…?”

“Would you cut that out?” Rusty asks, pulling his hand away, pressing it to his own chest as if it burns. 

Pete grumbles and lays on his back again, bending his knees and curling his toes into the blankets.

“I’m sorry, Rust…” he says, quiet like a mouse, sounding tearful. Cocaine must make you labile…

“It’s fine. Just...don’t be an idiot again.”

“S’not what I’m talkin’ about.”

Rusty knows that. He knew that. He just doesn’t wanna talk about it. There’s too much to say, too much that he’s been stewing on for months and months. 

“Just go to sleep.”

He’s quiet for a few minutes, and Rusty returns to his desk, idly skimming the contents of his textbook. The words are so out of focus, and not just because he downs another beer from his six pack. He’s livid. He’s sad. He can’t take his eyes off of Pete’s long, stupid legs swaying back and forth in his bed. He can’t stop waiting for him to make a sound again. He knows he will. Asshole never stops talking.

It’s not long before he hears the soft whimper of Pete’s bashful crying. He rolls his eyes like a monument to his father. Whenever he cried, there was never any comfort…

“Come on, Pete, don’t be like that.” He slams his book shut and slides his chair out, striding over with his arms across his chest.  “There’s nothing to cry about.”

 

__

 

_ There’s nothing to cry about _ . He’s heard that before, having so often collapsed into pathetic tears throughout his young life. There’s everything to cry about, and there always has been. He was born ugly, grew up ugly, cursed with pale, greasy skin and knobby knees. He thought, maybe, that college would be different. He thought that, since he had Rusty’s soft hands on him, it meant he could be absolved of all that awkwardness. He thought someone could love him that wasn’t his mother.

And  _ god, _ he’s an idiot, for that and so many other reasons. His brain is racing and he can feel every blood vessel struggle to keep up with what he’s done to his broken heart. He winces, hearing Rusty open another beer.

“I--” Sobs threaten him when he tries to speak, so he wraps himself up even further in the cocoon of blankets to drown out the noise, to hide how pitiful he knows he looks. “I’m sorry I left ya last summer, n’...” He curls into the smallest possible ball his lanky body will allow, shivering in fear and sorrow and stupor. “I’m sorry I made your dad yell at ya…N’ I’m--”

“ _ Made him-- _ White, what the fuck are you talking about?” He winces at the bitterness in Rusty’s voice. All for him, where it used to be tender and sweet. “My father would disapprove of my life even if I  _ hadn’t  _ fucked you! Don’t you get it?” There’s a long pause, peppered only with the glottal sound of beer being chugged. “He’s an asshole. Why do you think I was so mad you left? You left me alone. With  _ him _ .”

He sniffs back the nasty snot that builds in his nose. He has nothing to say but more sorries, and it doesn’t sound like Rusty wants to hear that.

“You think I’ve never gotten chewed out by Jonas _ fucking  _ Venture before, Pete? And for even stupider reasons?”

“...I dunno…”

“You didn’t think to take me  _ with  _ you?”

“I-I dunno--”

“God dammit, would you get out of there?” Rusty roughly pulls back the layers of blankets, and Pete closes his eyes as if being forced to stare into the sun. But he opens his eyes, slow like being born, and sees the desperation on Rusty’s face. The white of his eyes all fractal with red, lips trembling like a lost little child away from home, ready to wail. 

“...ya said we were just messin’ around…” Pete whimpers, fists curling into what he can hang onto of his shroud.

“...to get him  _ off my back _ , Pete.” For the first time this evening, Rusty’s voice softens. “And...I didn’t know  _ what  _ we were doing. You never said otherwise--”

“It wasn’t obvious, Rust?” He sniffs and shimmies, forcing himself to sit up. “I played all those songs for ya.”

“I thought...I dunno.”

They stare for a moment, just breathing, intoxicated, exhausted. Pete’s lips part, hesitant to speak.

“...no one’s ever loved ya before, have they, Rust?” He could not possible know what it’s supposed to look like. It looks like _ Heart of Glass _ on the radio, and grinning as you fall asleep. It looks like holding hands on the roof at night.

Rusty squeezes the neck of his beer bottle, so hard Pete worries it might shatter, even from those weak fingers. Blinking, his reddened eyes glossed over, he tosses back the rest of the beer and then drops the glass onto the carpeted floor. He sniffs, hiccuping to keep the tears at bay, and then folds into Pete’s chest, gripping his shirt like he’ll fall to the ground if he doesn’t hold on for dear life.

Pete’s shoulders slope, like someone has finally stopped squeezing his spine and forcing his body into some foreign shape. His arms, tremulous from the drugs and the fear and the crying, surround Rusty’s shivering back. Like muscle memory, he embraces him. He hasn’t felt right in months.

“No one…” Rusty confirms, his voice muffled by his own tears, by Pete’s clothes. “No one ever has…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HHHHHHHHHHHHHH
> 
> comments appreciated, y'all are the light of my life


	9. Love Will Tear Us Apart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just when things are going well...

 

They’re tired of hiding it from other people. _ It, _ whatever it is. How so many nights Pete disappears from his shared dorm with Mike and doesn’t return until the next day. How so often, when they all meet up, Pete and Rusty share some sort of softer glance for one another. Even playing D&D.  _ Ya should roll a deception check, Rust. Ya always do so well… _

Mike knows. The girls know. But just like them, they don’t talk about it. They just leave at night, saying their goodbyes, leaving them alone to do whatever it is they don’t want to think about them doing.

Rusty’s still closed-off, of course. Ever since that night where they sobbed onto one another he’s been even worse than usual. He speaks volumes with his touch, though. How he comes home from class to find Pete already in his room, how he gently tears the textbook from his hands and climbs onto him, slow like descending on prey.

And if Rusty’s a predator, Pete’s weak in nature. He collapses under him like his bones are breaking. He hasn’t said it again, hasn’t implied it again. How he might love him. He can only show it with his hands, his mouth, his sighs. He can only broadcast it vaguely over the radio.

_ “Here’s a lil’ somethin’ by Springsteen.”  _ ‘I’m on Fire’ plays subtly over Rusty’s FM radio and he hates the way it makes him smile. He hates how he looks forward to coming back to his dorm at night, how he’s eager to finish his homework and dive under the covers. Not that he has any basis for comparison, but Pete’s  _ good _ . He can tell. He touches him with a reverence he can’t blame on his stardom. His body has such give, such warmth.

They’re all ribs and acne, stringy hair and ill-fitting clothes, but it feels right. It feels better than it is back at the Venture compound, all nervous and unsure. 

In May, on the brink of finals and their associated panic, they lay in bed, Pete’s hands down Rusty’s pants, idly stroking, yawning in sleepiness.

“What are we doin’ over the summer, Rust?” he asks.  _ We _ , because he can’t imagine being away from him for that long.

“Not going to my house, that’s for sure,” he says, lips against Pete’s crown. 

“We could get a place. Travel, or somethin’...”

“That’s something grown-ups do. Grown-up _ couples _ .”

“Then what are we?”

“I’m not having this conversation.”

That’s usually how it goes. If they don’t have the conversation, it doesn’t have to hurt, or it doesn’t have to make them happy. They can just stay in bed. They can just rely on one another’s comfort without having to call home about it.

Not that Pete’s mom doesn’t pester him about it.

“Are you seeing someone, dear? You sound so happy.”

“M’just glad to be outta the house, ma. Come on…”

Anything to deflect. Even if it makes her feel terrible. Anything but telling the truth.  _ Ma, this guy, he’s the worst person I’ve ever met, but he makes me crazy _ . She’d tell him he ought to take better care of his own heart, but he already knows that. He knows he should gird himself, should set boundaries, should stop showing up at Rusty’s door with cheap booze and even cheaper weed. He knows he should stop pushing him down onto the mattress and pawing at his zipper. He knows he should stop melting under his sloppy kisses.

But they are sweet, despite how bad Rusty manages to be at it. Like he’s trying, like he reaches so desperately for the approximation of love. And Pete, his pity runs deep, having seen the way Rusty cowers from the phone when his father calls, how he wrings his hands when he tells stories of his youth. He’s a helpless case, Rusty. He’s the only person more helpless than Pete himself, and so he clings.

But there’s joy to it. There’s a sense of sameness. They’re both pathetic, and they’re both lonely. Neither of them could get anyone else, regardless of a famous childhood or a popular radio show. In the flesh they’re just too awful for anyone to want them. Together in their suffering, they can smile. They can find themselves up late at night, hands in a pile between them, giggling about something stupid, something that occured to them while stoned.

He holds out hope that there’s tenderness. When Rusty runs a finger beneath his speckled nose, checking for blood. When he holds him close for a moment, even after he’s come. When he wakes him in the morning with a peck to his temple, calls him  _ sleepyhead _ , like he’s experimenting with being nice.

Pete can’t blame him. No one taught Rusty how to be kind. But maybe it isn’t too late.

 

\--

 

They spend their summers apart. They talk on the phone, girlishly twirling the cords around their fingers like a placeholder for touch. With so much distance between them, it’s easier to say the things that Pete wishes they would say face-to-face.  _ I miss ya, Rust. I whacked off like three times today… _ And Rusty will one-up him like he always does. _ Five. Told my dad I was napping _ .

In August, on the cusp of their senior year, the summer sweat seems to seep even deeper into Pete’s wide and greasy pores. It’s their last year where they have no choice but to exist in the same place. The last year they have to sheepishly smile at the ground when people ask what their plans for the evening are. And he won’t dare ask what Rusty’s plans are. And Rusty won’t dare tell him.

Mostly because he has no fucking clue.

A Bachelor's degree in the sciences is more like a Boy Scout badge than an actual qualification. If he’s going to have a career, he’ll have to get his masters, his Phd. Even if only to show his dad he can do it. There’s no love behind the decent grades he manages to get. 

So when he returns, grimacing at the notice that his roommate will be a dumb freshman, it hardly feels like he’s accomplished much of anything. He’s gotten a lot of knowledge and a single sex partner who is head-over-heels for him. 

It’s not that he feels nothing. Well, not any more nothing than usual. It’s hard to know his own heart when it was wrung dry from him so early in his life. Pete understands, maybe. He gets his feelings hurt, because he’s sensitive as his skin, but he knows not to pout. Thank god. The few times Rusty has seen that hurt look on his face it made him sting in the chest. It made him filled with a new sort of guilt, and not the kind that his father bred into him.

He doesn’t want to hurt Pete, but he’s so damn good at it.

It’s lonesome thoughts like that which lead him to his door each night. Pete’s roommate is out for the weekend, visiting his rich family, and Pete has all of their separating tape balled up and throw into the corner. Kings of disrespect and snideness, there is not a surface on which they do not make love. He calls it that because he feels like he owes Pete some sort of kindness. It’s not just  _ fucking _ , because that’s for people who don’t hold hands sometimes. That’s for people who can’t sleep soundly in the same bed.

 

\--

 

March is warm this year. There are rumors that the Earth is slowly dying, just like Bowie said, and Pete can feel it in his bones. Like he’s getting old as twenty-two. If the Earth is dying and so must he, then he’s got to make the most of it, right? He’s got to stay up too late to catch every hour he can. He’s got to set aside his fear and be more honest. He’s already fucked up enough, already gotten kicked off the air and squandered his already-tenuous friendship with Mike. The only thing that kept him from spiraling was Rusty. With him, he could still play music and talk into the night.

He comes by Rusty’s dorm, a vinyl record behind his back. That copy of  _ The Yes Album  _ that they used to listen to has long-since fallen into warp and scratches. Other than giving him the record, he’s not got any solid plans. How do you tell a man like Rusty that you love him, and for real this time? How do you ask an adventurer to stay with you after college? 

He grins as he unlocks the door, still gleeful to have been given a spare key, and slides into the room with his heart pounding loud enough for him to hear it.

“Rust, I brought ya--”

He’s sitting on the floor, in the center of the room. Often does he get that vacant look in his eyes, often does he space out and go to that awful place where he’s still so small and helpless. He does the kidnapping himself.

“What’s wrong, pally?” Pete places the record on the bedside table and kneels down in front of him, bending his head to try and gauge his sorrow.

“Dad died,” he says, nearly inaudible, as if he’s being choked.

“Oh my god, Rust--”

“He died. What am I supposed to...how…” He cradles his head in his hands, then. Like he might cry or yell, but nothing comes. “Pete, I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel.”

Pete settles, sidling over to sit next to Rusty on the floor, leaning his head on his shaking shoulder, looping an arm through his.

“I dunno…” He’s never dealt with any sort of loss. He never knew a father to miss. “I...I dunno, Rust. M’sorry…” There he goes again, always apologizing. He winces at his own misstep and turns his face to Rusty’s, pressing his lips to his cheek. Dry as the desert. Once, twice, three times, as if he can fix it with his useless love. He slides his hand across Rusty’s chest, over to his opposite shoulder. “M’sorry…”

Rusty falls into him like a tidal wave. This is what it is, making love. It’s the only option to get you through the sadness, the anger, the confusion. It’s reaching out from the fog for the most familiar body, one so scrawny and pale. It’s Pete, silent as if amazed, as Rusty undresses him slow, careful, reverent for the first time. It’s how they embrace as Rusty’s in him, on him, how he buries his nose in that long, red hair. He cries as a proxy. He cries because maybe he doesn’t have to say it out loud. 

They fall asleep in a pile of bare limbs, and in the morning, he’s alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is this even good I'm so exhausted for some reason
> 
> I would like to hold Pete very close and apologize to him for the way he's been treated by me lmao


	10. Perpetual Change

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Le end. Pete and Rusty, years later, finally get a little bit of positive closure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hope this is a satisfying end! Thank you all so much for going on this lil journey with me.

Pete spends many years blaming Rusty for every little thing that’s wrong with him. He’s the reason he’s a cokehead, he’s the reason he’s so selfish. He sees him, just once, just briefly, and it hurts so much he won’t ever talk about it.  _ Just get out of here, White, I don’t have anything for you.  _ Not so much as a hello, old friend. Only sneering and suspicious eye turned to Billy, waiting anxiously in the wings.

Rusty’s the reason he’s alone in the desert with his skin burning. He’s the reason he hasn’t eaten in days.

It’s not until he is thrown that heavy duffel bag full of his biggest regret that he can come to terms with the truth.

He’s a bad person. He was always a bad person. Rusty is just a worse person than him, and it made him feel good. 

And for Billy’s sake, he ought to stay a bad person to keep that tiny, brilliant young man from feeling like he’s even worse. Though he promises to spend years making up for every little thing he’s done wrong, there is a part of him that knows he cannot undo the badness inside of him. It is too much a comfort.

 

\--

 

He hates having to ask him for help. Hasn’t he tortured the poor guy enough? He wishes he could separate White from Billy, like, physically. Wishes he could just employ the help of a surgeon, not a surgeon and his albino sidekick. But those two have glued themselves together, and it seems no amount of bickering can corrode the bond.

“...ya look good, Rust,” Pete says, arms folded, leaning against the bar as they wait for Billy to come out of the makeshift operating room. Hank’s just waking up from anesthesia. 

“Hm.” Rusty pours them both a cocktail, hurriedly made with shaking hands. He can’t admit aloud that it’s been a nightmare having both of his sons under the knife in one day. He can’t admit that he worries, or that he’s relieved they both survived intact. “You look...your skin is…” He makes some vague gesture with his hand and then brings their drinks over to the coffee table.

“Yeah, I finally discovered salicylic acid after...after college....”

After he left. Rusty knows that’s what he’s trying not to say.  _ After college, after you left. _ And he knows his leaving was a far worse offense than when Pete snuck out of the compound years ago.

But goddammit if Jonas fucking Venture wasn’t the villain each and every time.

“So…” Rusty stares into his drink. “You’re still with Billy after all this time?”

“With-- nah, no, it ain’t like that--”

Rusty grins, snorting as he surrounds his straw with his lips.

“I didn’t mean to  _ imply _ …”

“You  _ did _ ,” he accuses, his tone airier than Rusty expected. He expected bitterness. He expected petty remarks and snide comments, but all he’s getting is just...Pete. Distilled over the years, refined. Come into his own, as they say. “N’yeah, we got separated for a while but uh…” He sniffs and runs a finger around the rim of his glass. “It’s been a’right.”

“Good.” And he means it, even if it’s only because it gets him off scot free. It means he doesn’t have to feel guilty anymore. He doesn’t have to say he’s sorry. He’s never been good at it, has he? Pete ought to know.

And as always, the don’t say a word about it. All they do is stare across the couch as if floating by in different vessels. They’re not supposed to do anything but pass in the night, and that’s okay.

Any awkward affection is stymied by Billy swinging open the door from the lab, sending them both flying across the couch. Brock follows close behind, guiding a delirious Hank to his room to rest.

They’ve both got reasons to move on. But he knows Pete will be there if he needs someone. He’s so cruel, and he can’t find it in his heart to even wish to change.

 

\--

 

He carries a cardboard box. It’s got knick-knacks in it, but no photos. He has no one he needs to be reminded of by placing their image on his desk. He sees everyone he cares for too often to forget them…

And he does care for people. He’ll even admit it sometimes, if he’s drunk enough. And tonight, he’ll be drunk enough. They’re celebrating their new jobs, their new life, in New York, and if they get there early enough they can make drinks before Rusty has the chance.

The music, too. In the penthouse living room he rifles through the CD collection, finding nothing but unopened Best-Ofs and self-help recordings, cringing at the thought of how pathetic and hopeless Rusty must feel to buy that sort of shit. But he finds one CD, the booklet worn from reading, the case cracked with age, and he bites his lip and blinks, accosted with the sudden feeling of nostalgia, of love lost.

_ The Yes Album _ , scratched up from playing too much. He sniffs and cannot help but hold the disc close to his chest. He can’t cry. Not in front of Billy, who already misses no chances at calling him overly sensitive. Not in front of Rusty, who will call him a sap and drive the hurt in a little deeper.

But he can press the disc into the CD-player and turn up the speakers. Rusty enters the room and Pete spins around, pressing fingers to one of his ears as if wearing a headset.

“And now, an old favorite a’ mine from my college years…”

Rusty rolls his eyes, but it ends in an appreciate smile.

“You two with your Prog Rock, I swear to god…” Billy mumbles into his drink

They shrug. They’ll defend these songs to their death. 

Their strong drinks grow empty as the album draws to an end. Billy is musing nonsense on the couch, Brock is suffocating the annoyance in so many beers. Pete and Rusty stand close as they used to, in front of the wide window, looking out over the city, their kingdom.

“...we’re...good, right?” Pete asks into the mouth of his freshened cocktail.

“Are you serious?” Rusty asks, smacking him on the arm. “It’s been  _ years-- _ ”

“Yeah but…” He gulps, looking down between his buckled shoes. “I’m trynna remember it fondly, is all.”

“You don’t?”

“You  _ do? _ ”

Rusty smirks, turning his face back toward the window.

“Yeah. I do. You were…” He takes a quick look around the room, making certain no one is paying them any mind. “You were my first, White. We were stupid. But…” And he takes a healthy sip, as if doping his blood for honesty. “...I wouldn’t...want to have been stupid with anyone else.” His eyes are fixed on the glass. He never was very good at eye contact. 

But Pete grins regardless. He grins and he feels his chest flutter, as if the years have kept his heart still. He tosses a lazy arm over Rusty’s shoulder and leans softly against him.

“I never stopped bein’ your friend, Rust.” Bravely, drunkenly, he turns his head and presses his lips to Rusty’s bare temple. 

“Yeah…” Rusty bends his arm, draping his hand over Pete’s wrist. “Me neither, White.” They tilt their heads together as if ready to sleep in a twin-sized bed. Pete can’t help the way he chuckles. Only took them twenty years. 

“Can we  _ please  _ listen to something else?” Billy calls from the couch, interrupting their softness, their reverie. 

They separate some, and Pete gives Rusty a tentative look, as if asking permission.

“Let him pick, White. It’s…” Rusty runs a hand down Pete’s arm, slow and measured. “It’s his turn now, okay?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> His turn to LOVE AND CARE FOR PETE
> 
> i'm emotional. it was so hard not to give this a classic happy ending where they're together and everything is fine, but it just didn't feel right to do that when they're both so......that way


End file.
